Vision and Gender in Malory's Morte Darthur (review)

Morte Darthur continues to fascinate the modern academic as a famously contested example of the evolution of the novel into a form more familiar to today's audiences. The text has been mined for its construction of chivalric ideals, its use of previous Arthurian material, and the narrative flow of the tales into a contested single book in Caxton's edit. With Vision and Gender in Malory's Morte Darthur, Molly Martin advances the discussion of chivalric and gendered norms in the Morte through a detailed analysis of the way in which vision focuses, limits, and directs gendered behaviour through the prism of chivalric and noble society.

Opening with a close discussion of previous literature on gender construction in the Morte, Martin adds to it a survey of the discussion on gender construction more broadly, examining the evolving use of 'the gaze' as a touchstone for criticism throughout the visual media such as film. As some of the feminist media criticism may be unfamiliar to readers steeped in narrative analysis, Martin's introduction is a highly useful primer to the material. In addition, Martin provides a solid indication of the way she intends to wield her consideration of the primacy of the gaze across the Morte.

The analysis is well written and typically accessible, with a strong use of secondary sources to illustrate and bolster the arguments being put forward. Although the specific thrust of this study - the ways in which the visual act helps construct the visibility of gender, especially 'seen' as a performative act itself - seems a relatively new critique to apply to Malory, Martin displays a comfortable familiarity with established research and revisits it with a fresh approach, joining up the dots in a manner that made me as a reader wonder why no-one had thought to analyse Malory in this fashion before: that is, the ways in which Malory so clearly focuses on how his characters see, and aim to be seen, in order to emerge into the reality of Arthur's Camelot.

Centring the analysis upon specific figures of masculinity and femininity, the close reading identifies the characters' use of sight as a tool for performance and the underpinning of their socialization. In Martin's Morte, men and women cannot help but invite visibility: to do so allows them to publicly perform gender roles and find a place in Arthurian society. Gareth provides a paradigm of this visible masculinity in Martin's reading, while the two Elaynes provide a useful contrast to explore how women, too, are gendered by their visibility. Palomydes and other lesser knightly characters, depict how those who seek invisibility or who are invisible due to their lack of visibility to their female love interests can only partake partially in the narrative of male chivalric achievement. Lancelot and Trystram are used to illustrate the contestation of male identity between the requirements of the (invisible) affair and the (visible) gender performance, and the grail quest, including the interpolation of Percivale's sister, highlights the ways in which Malory uses the source material to continue the emphasis on the physical realm and its use of vision, rather than spiritual 'seeing'.

This is an important consideration which suggests Martin's belief in the overall unanimity of the text, addressing but ultimately sidestepping some of the academic discussion regarding whether the Morte works best as a series of tales or not. Although Martin seems to agree with the 'single text' approach to the Morte - as her visual analysis highlights the similarity across the Grail and other narratives in their use of vision and gender construction - it is one of the few disappointing areas of this study that she only touches on this debate, and does not use her overall analysis to more clearly discuss the ramifications of a visual approach that to her works across the Morte, papering over any other discontinuities.

Overall Martin's contentions are sound and her use of the...